


it'll just be me and you when we clear out all the elephants

by weird_bird (2weird4)



Series: 2014 Trek Fics [2]
Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Academy Era, Fluff, M/M, Unresolved Romantic Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-23
Updated: 2016-11-23
Packaged: 2018-09-01 19:03:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 732
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8634298
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/2weird4/pseuds/weird_bird
Summary: “Watch me never make you a single grit again.”“A single grit? I don’t think grits come in ones.” “Don’t you tell me about grits, Iowa."





	

**Author's Note:**

> This was for [the darlin' collection.](http://messessentialist.tumblr.com/post/78920585095/mckirk-fandom-maya-toboldlydammitjimhas)
> 
> Title from ["Sloppy Seconds" by Watsky.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VCEsveSK5to)

“Eat your goddamn breakfast,” Bones grumbles, standing.

Jim beams back at him with his mouth full of eggs and when Bones makes a disgusted sound like a put-out goat, struggles not to  
spray it out in laughter.

“Watch me never make you a single grit again.”

“A single grit? I don’t think grits come in ones.” Jim waggles his eyebrows at him and yeah, he figures he deserves the thump on  
the back of the head.

“Don’t you tell me about grits, Iowa. Later, you–you thankless delinquent.” He huffs at him and then something in his face  
softens.

Looking like he’s on automatic, Bones dips in.

Jim’s eyes fly wide as chapped lips brush his cheek. Chaste, perfunctory, as if he’s done it a hundred times and he’ll do it a hundred more. 

“Bye, darlin’,” Bones drawls. The sound slips down his spine and pools like the syrup currently dripping off his laden fork onto the  
table. _Plink._

The door slides closed succinctly. Plink. Plink. Jim only remembers to stop gaping so he can wolf down his pancakes because, really. Even Bones-related crises can wait for Bones’s fluffy-as-a-cloud pancakes.

He strokes his cheek with wondering fingertips straight through his diplomacy lecture.

They’re withdrawn within their own spheres that night, bubbles occasionally nudging up against each other from  
opposite ends of the sofa when Bones reaches for a stylus or Jim’s weight dimples the cushions differently.

Jim’s fingers have found his cheek again and he looks up to find Bones watching him. A leg’s sprawled over the couch, one  
knee’s dragged up, and damn if that space between his thighs doesn’t look like prime real estate. He slides his stare up to find Bones’s mouth wryly knowing even when wrapped around his Friday beer bottle.

“About this morning–” Jim starts, glad he likes hazel eyes, too, or he’d be looking all kinds of places inappropriate for this conversation.

“I was married. I’m from Georgia.” _Jaw-ja._ Yeah, Bones is really Southern, Jim gets that, but. _Darlin’._ Jesus Christ.“You get used to that sort of thing. Get mixed up. Forget.”

“Wow, how domesticated are you?” Jim snorts. He closes the space between them just to snatch the bottle and take a pointed swig himself. “I get it.” He honestly doesn’t. Not their easy and free fondness when everyone else has taught Jim to dole it out gingerly. Not the way Bones manages to kick up the sand and then redraw the lines when Jim isn't looking.

“Force'a habit, kid,“ Bones grunts in agreement, then sinks back into his research with the characteristic intensity Jim won’t fault him for a minute. "Crossed wires.” Yeah, alright, Jim’s said he got it.

Crossed wires is too fucking right. Kid. _Darlin’._ He needs to sort out the sparking mess that is his mind. Leaning his cheek on his palm, he tries to go back to work.

Saturday morning, Jim wakes to a head muzzy with the week’s lingering exhaustion compounded with alcohol. He stumbles over to the counter and blinks stupidly at the tray sitting on it.

Coffee, black. Hypo, blue-labeled–he squints to find that it’s a hangover hypo. Weird. Isn’t he allergic to those? Must be modified just for him, he realizes. A bowl of grits, steaming, the skew of the spoon making him want to laugh with delight, somehow. Bones’s PADD’s been left there as well. Weird. He hates it near food, but there it is, nudging up against the bowl and the cup. Jim squints at it, expecting a hailstorm of caveats about hypo usage.

_[8:03]  
LHM: Jocelyn is a redhead._

Bones is trying to tell him something and shit, why isn’t he getting it, when Bones always gets him, when they get each other? That’s a thing, right, them getting each other?

Jim has the first spoon of grits (ah, perhaps _this_ is a single unit of grits) held to his mouth and is staring at it with probably inordinate distress.

A wide palm lands at his shoulder. A solid presence at his back. A low laugh at his nape.

“Hey, darlin’.” Slow and syrupy and he feels that right down to his toes. Wants to lick it straight out his generous mouth.

Turning to tip his forehead into his shoulder feels like dragging his foot across a line in sun-hot sand, tingly and warm, scuffing out yet another godforsaken boundary.


End file.
